Not CD of the week: Sheryl Garratt
Happiness is largely a matter of perception. But if the world is split into optimists who see a glass as half- full and pessimists who see it as half- empty, then Canadian singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette goes further: she sees the glass as a dangerous weapon that will inevitably be smashed into the face of a poor, defenceless woman by a rampaging, drunken male.
Morissette is not a happy bunny, but these days there’s money in misery. At 21, she recorded an album of raw, angry songs with a few naughty references to blowjobs and the like, a couple of stomping choruses and a petulant, adolescent kind of charm. Jagged Little Pill sold 28-million copies. Victim culture finally had a pop princess of pain (although compared to Sinead O’Connor’s frenzied, cathartic anger, Morissette only ever sounded mildly cross).
Three years on, as she releases her new album, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (Maverick), Morissette is about $80-million richer. You may think this would allow her to smile a bit, crack a few jokes. But heaven knows she’s miserable now.
Backpacking in India, she claims to have found a new serenity, reflected in this follow-up album. Yet the therapy-speak of the title gives an idea of what to expect. Morissette came back from the subcontinent with a nasty case of verbal diarrhoea. Some Westerners tour India and realise that, actually, they’re quite well off. She seems to have gone looking for salvation and happiness and returned feeling cross that India let her down.
But then everything seems to let her down. Men. Relationships. Record companies. Fame. Wealth. Sex. One song on the album, Would Not Come, is a four- minute list of all the things that have failed her. Everyone and everything is to blame for her pain, and she spends 71 long minutes sharing it with us.
A self-indulgent 17 tracks long, the album is a torrent of words in search of a good time. There are songs about violent relationships, eating disorders, more bad relationships, power, fame, doom and gloom. This more feminine Morissette has lost the stomping rawk, shouts less and yodels more, and never uses one word if 10 could clutter up the line instead.
Soundbites
Hugh Masekela: The Boy’s Doin’ It (Verve) In the mid-Seventies, Hugh Masekela played with a variety of African highlife and juju musicians. A couple of them stayed with him when he signed with adventurous label Casablanca (famous for its disco hits), where he made four albums. This collection gives all of the first and bits of the others: jivey Afro- fusion that, at its best, has considerable energy and style. – Shaun de Waal
Semisonic: Feeling Strangely Fine (MCA) REM fans disoriented by their heroes’ shift into ever more cryptic, experimental territory could do worse than check this Minneapolis trio. The dozen songs on Semisonic’s second album come with jumbo guitar hooks and big melodies, though it’s the finely wrought vocals of leader Dan Wilson that leave the most impression. -Neil Spencer
Bette Midler: Bathhouse Betty (Gallo) Not satisfied with having the worst album title of the year, Midler heightens the shame with absolute disasters I’m Hip and I’m Beautiful – on this album she’s certainly neither. Ill-conceived and badly executed. – Nashen Moodley